Next Meeting: When: 19 November 2009, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Speaker: Dr. MengChu Zhou Topic: Roll-based Collaboration Where: Northrop-Grumman, building S, S-Cafe, Redondo Beach Enter the S-Cafe at the north side of building S.  A map, showing the location of building S, located just east of the corner of Aviation and Marine, on the Space Park campus, is available at space park map Food will be provided.  Please respond to excom@rcicc.org Website: rcicc.org Summary: Collaboration is a common activity in a society of people. Collaboration means to work together. It commonly mentions a joint intellectual work. We can infer that collaboration or group work is required when one single person cannot complete a whole task. Computer-based systems are tools to extend the abilities for people to work. They should not only provide virtual environments or platforms for people to work but also provide more technologies and mechanisms to improve people's work. Clear role specification and related mechanisms play an essential role in developing the intelligent collaborative systems. In this talk, we intend to clarify the concept of roles and role-based collaboration and answer the following questions: What do we mean by roles in collaboration? Why do we need them? How can we support them? What are their implications in software engineering? MengChu Zhou is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of Discrete-Event Systems Laboratory at New Jersey Institute of Technology. His research interests are in Petri nets, collaborative systems, semiconductor manufacturing, and sensor networks. He has over 300 publications including 9 books, 140+ journal papers including over 80 IEEE Transactions papers, and 17 book-chapters. Based on the data analysis from Scopus database (the world’s most extensive database covering science and engineering papers), in the area of Petri nets, Dr. Zhou ranks the top one in terms of the number of publications; and top two in terms of the number of citations. He is Editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Part A and IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics. He was General Co-Chair of 2003 IEEE International Conference on System, Man and Cybernetics, Washington DC, October 5-8, 2003, Founding General Co-Chair of 2004 IEEE Int. Conf. on Networking, Sensing and Control, Taipei, March 21-23, 2004, and General Chair of 2006 IEEE Int. Conf. on Networking, Sensing and Control, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.A. April 23-25, 2006 and IEEE Conf. on Automation Science and Engineering, Washington D.C., August 23-26, 2008.. He was Program Chair of 1998 and 2001 IEEE International Conference on System, Man and Cybernetics (SMC) and 1997 IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation. Dr. Zhou was the recipient of NSF’s Research Initiation Award, CIM University-LEAD Award by Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Perlis Research Award by NJIT, Humboldt Research Award for US Senior Scientists, and Outstanding Contribution Award by IEEE SMC Society. He was the founding chair of Discrete Event Systems Technical Committee, and founding co-chair of Enterprise Information Systems of IEEE SMC Society. He is Fellow of IEEE. MengChu Zhou, Ph.D. & Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering Department New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, NJ 07102, USA zhou@njit.edu